Franky thinks too much
by New Neon
Summary: Franky should perhaps be warned off of wild speculation and guessing. Especially when Robin is around. Oneshot Franky/Robin


Franky was thinking. This in itself was not unusual, the Sunny's shipwright was often toying with one idea or another, figuring out how things could best fit together. So it wasn't often that he had an empty head. However, this time Franky was thinking about something that'd not occurred to him before, which admittedly, perhaps should have done.

It had been today that had sparked this line of thought, the Straw Hats had been on an adventure, as always, and they had come across a little girl. She had been alone and lost and very scared. The island that they were on had just undergone a natural disaster in the form of a volcanic eruption, it had effectively ripped the island in two and filled in the gaps with lava that was too hot still to cross.

The tiny little girl, Franky had estimated her age at no more than ten years old, was stuck on the now uninhabited side of the island all by herself. When Luffy ran into her she was just about to be eaten by a giant cat, which incidentally was shortly thereafter eaten by Luffy. Of course the Straw Hat crew took her on board and sailed carefully around the boiling water where lava met ocean to the other half of the island, wary of the possibility that her whole family might be dead.

They had searched all day for her family and just as they were starting to think that the little girl was in fact an orphan now, Franky literally walked into the girl's family. Robin had been with him at the time and Franky had noticed the relief on her face at seeing the girl reunited with her family. This didn't surprise Franky, the whole crew had been relieved to find that the girl would be okay. What did surprise Franky was the idea that this little girl wasn't too different from Robin twenty or so years ago. Alone and scared, her life ripped apart. Only this little girl had been lucky, she still had a family and a life, Robin hadn't been so lucky.

He didn't need to imagine what Robin looked like then, he knew that eight year old's face down to his bones from her wanted poster. Back then he'd seen something dangerous, something with an evil secret. But now… now he recognised the fear in those big eyes, now he could imagine how awful it'd been for her.

Back at enies lobby he'd got more of a glimpse into her past than perhaps anyone had before, or since for that matter. He'd not had a fantastic start at life either, abandoned by his family and found by a fishman in a junk-yard, but considering all that his life had been okay. Sure, he'd not had Tom-san around for long, and the old man's death was more than traumatic, after all the Sunny had been the first thing that he'd been able to bring himself to build since the day Tom died. But he'd had a home, and when he arrived back at water seven he grew a new home, and a new family.

But Robin…

Robin had been alone her entire life since she was a kid, running from place to place with a huge bounty on her head for something that wasn't even her fault, no friends, no family, no home. He wondered about the life she'd had, who she'd stayed with and what she'd done. It was this particular thought that was boiling in his brain right about now.

He knew that there were good people out there that'd help out a kid in need, Tom-san for example, however he'd not had a bounty on his head. He wondered how hard it was to find good people when you were a kid worth more than some people made in a lifetime, even your average person would be tempted to turn you over for the money. Those kind of people weren't evil, not in a big way, but a lot of people had that small minded selfish meanness that could be brought out with the offer of a lot of money.

Your average person would be horrified at the idea of selling a defenceless little girl for money if you asked them about it. But if one happens to show up with a massive bounty then well, it wasn't your fault that she showed up was it? And you had given her a bed for the night hadn't you? And she had to have that bounty for a reason didn't she? So perhaps you were doing her a favour, nay, the world a favour by turning her over? _Not _that you want the money of course, heavens no, but well, they are offering it aren't they? Yes. That sort of thinking was easy for your average person, again, not evil, not really. But certainly not good. Whilst Franky was of the opinion that there were few truly bad people out there, he also thought that there were few good people out there too, everyone else was pleasant enough until you gave them the right incentive not to be, then they'd rip you to pieces and think themselves moral for doing it.

This wasn't to say that Franky considered himself an especially good person either,, he had his flaws, he felt absolutely no sympathy when Robin had snapped Spandam's spine in two, in fact he'd been pleased about it. Which perhaps was not moral behaviour. And true, his little bunch of misfits back on water seven weren't moral people either, but they weren't bad and they certainly weren't _evil_. Oh sure, they might have some predispositions to drinking, smoking, swearing, being a general nuisance and stealing things left unattended and therefore obviously unwanted, and thus fair game. Some people on water seven had derogatorily remarked in the past that things that the Franky family regarded as 'unattended and unwanted' included anything that wasn't currently nailed down. Franky thought that was offensive and unfair, after all good nails were expensive.

Given then the average low moral fibre of the people in this sort of world what was it Robin had done to survive? Who had she stayed with? The obvious answer was pirates, it's difficult to turn someone over to the marines when they want you too, and what good was a bounty that you couldn't collect? This was what was giving Franky the chills. Oh sure, the Straw Hats were good people, damn good people in fact. Luffy would sooner die than turn away people in need, Sanji would feed his own worst enemy if they were starving, and even the cold Nami wouldn't stand for injustice especially against the weak. But Franky would have to concede that pretty much no other pirates were as nice as the Straw Hat crew. Not to say that pirates were by definition evil, certainly not, but the lifestyle did attract more than it's fair share sociopaths and bastards.

And, given that thought, what kind of pirates want an eight year old girl on their crew? Granted Robin's ability would be useful for ship maintenance, and perhaps she could be useful as that kind of crew member. But Franky couldn't help but think that perhaps some pirates wanted a young vulnerable Robin for… other reasons. And what would Robin be able to do? Once she was on the ocean Robin was trapped on the ship she was on, no escape from whomever and whatever was around.

Franky was aware that his fists were clenched far tighter than was advisable. The remains of dinner was on the table before him, though Sanji was presently cleaning up, and down the table Robin was reading and drinking an after-dinner coffee. Keeping his head perfectly still, because he knew better than to ever assume that Robin wasn't watching him, he let his eyes slide sideways to look at her through the safety of his sunglasses.

Was there any way to tell if she'd been… hurt by someone? Even if she had what could he do about it? There was certainly nothing he could say to make that better. But perhaps he should say something and ask, if only to stop this horrible thought eating at him at night.

Another unpleasant thought lay in juxtaposition with this one, and that was that Franky quite liked Robin. 'Liked' was not a strong enough word he supposed, but loved was too strong. Not that he didn't love her as a nakama of course, but then he felt that way about all the crew, but romantically love was too strong a word. He didn't know her that well.

He'd not done anything about it before now for several good reasons. Firstly, she was nakama, and relationships with nakama were often a very bad idea. Secondly, although he found her attractive, for she was a beautiful woman, it was somewhat difficult to convince your body to respond to that attraction when said beautiful lady was not too long ago quite okay with the idea of attempting to permanently separate his balls from his body. That though was perhaps a small mercy when considering that he wore little more than speedos on a daily basis. Thirdly, and perhaps embarrassingly was that Robin intimidated him more than a little, she was an attractive, smart and worldly woman and she could probably kill him without too much difficulty. That alone was intimidating, but attraction was a two way street, he had to consider himself. And with that in mind Franky had his doubts that any affection for her could be returned on her part, after all, he was loudmouthed Cyborg who took the skin on his hands off like gloves, not exactly an attractive feature. He wasn't much of a catch.

But all that considered he'd harboured a soft patch of affection for the archaeologist for some time now. However, if it were the case that some bastard pirates in the past had taken advantage of Robin in the worst way then… well. Was he even an option for her?

His little rag-tag bunch of misfits back on water seven included a lot of people who had seen the nasty side of human nature more than once and Mozu and Kiwi had, he knew, been subjected to that particular tyranny of man once in the past. It took a while for the twins to confide that in him but he knew that they'd never been quite the same since. Not that they weren't happy girls, not that they didn't live good lives but he felt that there was always that fear somewhere in them, running underneath the surface.

He didn't know if Mozu and Kiwi had been able to be with anyone like _that_ since and frankly back then the thought of two girls that he regarded as sisters getting it on with _anyone_ warranted a large dose of brain bleach. Now he sort of wished he'd asked. Because if it was the case that Robin wouldn't ever be comfortable with men romantically because of a past like that then his affections could end up making things worse. Or, and he could hardly bear thinking about this, but perhaps any advances on his part would stir up that undercurrent of fear and she'd flee the crew.

He looked carefully at Robin again, not that you could see that kind of thing by looking at a person, but perhaps he hoped that he'd seen some sign that she'd been okay and avoided the worst and that he wasn't likely to blunder into ruining everything forever.

"Have I perhaps got something on my face?" Robin asked smoothly, not even looking up from her book. Franky, to his eternal shame, jumped at her sudden words. Unfortunately jumping whilst sitting at a table leads not to a dramatic escape, but instead to kneeing the table violently and swearing. Sanji shot him a dark look from across the room for both swearing in front of a lady and for disturbing his kitchen.

"I- ah, what?" He replied incoherently as he rubbed his sore knee. He winced internally at this, how was it that Robin could make him, a thirty-something adult man, feel like he was a terrified fourteen year old again and trying to talk to girls without his voice spontaneously leaping in pitch?

"You were staring at me for some time, I wondered if perhaps I had something stuck to my face." Robin replied smoothly, laying down her book and looking at him with her piercing eyes.

"No! No, I just… ah… remembered that, ah, I promised that I'd help Chopper with… something… somewhere else. Right now." He lied badly and leapt up and ran past her out of the room, hoping that if he was fast enough she'd believe him.

Robin suppressed her smirk, that had been a little mean perhaps, but Franky's staring off into space in her general direction had been getting irksome. She was fairly sure that he wasn't actually looking _at_ her, he was clearly miles away mentally. She guessed that meeting that poor child who nearly lost both her parents was a little close to home for him. Being abandoned by both your parents had to be tough, she'd never known her father so never missed him, but Franky had lost two fathers. Seeing that little girl must have upset the poor shipwright, even though he seemed so happy to get her back to her family.

Still, she mused, picking her book back up. He seemed to cope most of the time, and maybe if he spent enough time on board with the crew they'd heal some of the pain of his past like they'd done for her. It seemed that the metal man was more vulnerable than he liked to admit.


End file.
